US funding aims to lower steel’s carbon footprint

New Jersey-based Dastur International said June 28 it had secured federal funding to study ways to capture CO₂ and blast-furnace gasses emitted by the steel industry.

Working with Colorado’s ION Clean Energy and the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences, Dastur and its affiliates were tapped with studying design and engineering technology that could capture CO₂ and up to 2mn mt/yr of available blast furnace gas.

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“We are pleased to support this project for industrial-scale and cost-effective carbon capture from blast furnace gases at a large integrated steel plant in the US,” Jennifer Wilcox, a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy, said. “We hope that this approach can provide a viable pathway for the decarbonisation of an important sector of the US economy.”

Capturing and disposing of CO₂ and utilising a hydrogen-rich stream of gas can reduce emissions and meet the energy needs of the steelmaking industry. Neither the funding amount nor the direct steelmaking facility were referenced by Dastur.

Steel manufacturing is among the most energy intensive and among the more difficult of industries to decarbonise.

Outside of North America, Russian steelmaker Severstal in June signed two memoranda of understanding with oil and gas companies Novatek and Gazprom on developing blue hydrogen supply for its steel production plants. They will also work on CCS solutions, for the CO₂ emitted when blue hydrogen is produced and the CO₂ that is released at its facilities.